Open 24/7 for emergencies
A water heater flush in Stafford is $99 right now, normally $199, with a whole-home plumbing check. Book it after the County flushes your mains.
Get your price in writing
Send this and the office calls or texts you back to set a time.
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Rather talk now? (703) 997-9757
5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews
Two of our technicians in a customer’s basement, next to the furnace and a tank water heater.
Licensed and insuredVirginia Class A contractor #2705192276
24/7 emergency serviceOften same-day, and we will tell you honestly when we can get there.
Our own plumbers, our own trucksNobody here is a subcontractor with a magnet on the door
The price is settled before the workYou see the number in writing before anything is taken apart
What it costs
Same prices as our water heater flush page, anywhere in Northern Virginia, and you pay after the visit.
Tank water heater flush, with the plumbing check
$99, normally $199
Tankless descale, with the plumbing check
$300, regularly $350
Comfort+ membership, a water heater flush with a sewer camera inspection every year included
$199 a year
Both visits include a whole-home plumbing check: supply lines, shutoffs, a pressure reading, drains, toilets and traps.
One per household, owner-occupied homes, limited time. A leaking tank, or one that’s 15 years old, needs repair or replacement, not a flush.
More for the money: Comfort+ membership, $199 a year, includes the flush and its plumbing check every year, plus a sewer camera inspection, a dryer vent cleaning and heating and cooling maintenance visits.
What’s different in Stafford
Stafford County Utilities makes its water from two lakes: Smith Lake, and Lake Mooney, which the County fills by pumping from the Rappahannock. Its 2025 water quality report prints no hardness figure, so nobody can honestly quote you a grains per gallon number for a Stafford tap. The first water out of your tank’s drain valve shows how much has settled, and that’s the best guide to how often yours needs doing.
The County flushes its own pipes, too, for a few weeks every fall and early spring, and this season’s main flushing runs from October 19 through the end of November 2026. It pushes sediment and rust out of the mains, and the County asks you to hold off on running water while crews work nearby, then run the cold tap until it clears. Discolored water drawn through a hot tap meanwhile lands in the water heater, so the sensible order is the County’s flushing first, then yours.
The pressure reading that comes with the flush has a Stafford reason behind it. The Utilities FAQ says pressure can spike from the water heater itself: heated water expands, a backflow preventer won’t let it push back toward the meter, and the gauge climbs. Above 80 psi the plumbing code wants a pressure reducing valve, at the owner’s cost if the builder skipped it. If ours reads high, you see the number before anybody suggests a fix.
Past the County’s water lines, Rock Hill’s older neighborhoods, Lake Arrowhead among them, sit on 1 to 3 acre lots with private wells; the County’s plan counts about 10,000 homes countywide on a well and septic tank. Well water is as hard as your own test says. And with most Stafford houses heated by electricity, most tanks here are likely electric, with an element down low where the grit piles up.
Neighborhood by neighborhood
Census figures for each place, and what we’d look at first on a flush there. Median year built and heat count owner-occupied homes only.
| Place | Median home built | Most homes are | Heated with | What we’d look at first |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aquia Harbour | 1984 | single-family houses, nearly all | electricity, nearly all | A yearly flush, and a look at the anode rod. |
| Stafford Courthouse | 2005 | single-family houses, about 4 in 10 | gas, about 6 in 10 | Newer houses: original tanks reaching the age for an anode check. |
By the numbers
From the Census Bureau’s 2020 to 2024 survey. Median year built and heat count owner-occupied homes only.
ZIPs 22554 and 22556 as a whole: every Stafford address. The Census places in the table hold about one in seven of these homes.
When it’s due
If the cold tap runs clear but the hot stays brownish after the County’s flushing, sediment from the mains may have been drawn into the tank, or the tank’s lining has started to rust. A flush tells which. Grit that rinses out is the first; rust that keeps coming is a tank near its end.
That’s water boiling under a layer of sediment on the bottom of the tank. A flush clears it out.
Which is most houses. The drain valve at the bottom of the tank has usually never been opened.
Choosing who does it
Questions worth asking anybody you call, us included.
With no published hardness figure for County water, the first gallons from the drain valve are the honest measure of what’s in a Stafford tank. Ask to see them and to hear what the tech made of them.
The anode is the part that corrodes so the tank doesn’t, and the relief valve is the tank’s safety valve. A flush that skips both is just draining water.
A real descale isolates the heater at its service valves and pumps solution through the heat exchanger, then rinses it and cleans the inlet screen.
Two of our crew going over a work order before the day's calls.
From our Google reviews
5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews. Read them on our reviews page.
Had the water heater replaced and a quote for my HVAC. Both technicians were friendly and helpful. Prices were decent. Would use again.
Where we work
Next door to Stafford: Fredericksburg, Quantico, Triangle, Dumfries and Midland.
Questions
After the County’s hydrant crews have been through your neighborhood. The County puts up message boards in each area it’s about to flush, and a flush the week after means the tank starts the winter clean.
Yes, at the same $99 with the plumbing check. How often depends on your well test, not the County’s water, and the well and its pump stay with the well company.
$99 right now for a tank, normally $199, with a whole-home plumbing check. A tankless descale is $300 right now, regularly $350. Comfort+ membership, $199 a year, includes the flush every year.
Ready when you are
Call, or send the form at the top. Tell us tank or tankless, and the tech brings the right gear.
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing
4230 Lafayette Center Dr N, Chantilly, VA 20151
44679 Endicott Dr, Suite 211, Ashburn, VA 20147
Virginia Class A contractor license #2705192276
SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing is a licensed, BBB Accredited (A rating), independently owned heating, cooling and plumbing company in Chantilly, serving Stafford and the rest of Northern Virginia. Virginia contractor license #2705192276. 5.0 stars across 1,132 reviews on Google, Angi, Yelp, the BBB and Facebook. SwiftPro maintains a dedicated HVAC team and a dedicated plumbing team.
From SwiftPro Heating, Cooling & Plumbing in Chantilly. Housing figures are the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2020 to 2024, for each place named; permit, water and sewer facts link to each office’s own page and were checked in September and October 2026.